160 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. 
They occurred mainly in the experimental run put up by Mr. Clement 
Johnson, who was the only experimenter who succeeded in produc- 
ing some thirty hybrid chicks from a mating of a jungle cock with a 
-domestic hen. 
At one time he secured two jungle hens, which he placed in a large 
covered-in run with a jungle cock and two domestic hens. These 
hens tamed down wonderfully quickly, and were great friends with 
the cock. After a time one jungle hen developed gapes, so it was 
caught and set at liberty. Writing of this hen, Mr. Johnson says : 
‘“« The jungle hen that released interests me greatly. Its one object 
is to get back into the pen. It walks round and round outside or 
perches on the top. Any sudden or unusual noise alarms it, and it 
flies or runs into cover. On the other hand, you can approach 
within a few yards’ length of it, when it just calmly walks out of your 
path like a very tame domestic fowl, no hurry or flurry about it at 
all. It avoids fowls that cross its path. Since its release the jungle 
cock inside the run calls more or less all day long, and is undoubtedly 
distressed at seeing this hen at liberty outside his run. He gets 
frantic when she makes a run and disappears from view. I will 
give her a week or ten days’ liberty, and then drive her back into 
the run again.” 
This hen after haunting the scene of her captivity for many days 
disappeared one night. It is presumed that she was destroyed by 
one of the jungle cats that patrol the neighbourhood. 
A little later the second jungle hen developed chickenpox. Fear- 
ing that infection would spread, Mr. Johnson had this hen also 
caught and liberated, but she likewise refused to depart from the 
scene of her captivity. But as her removal was deemed necessary, 
she was caught and taken away across a ravine and liberated in the 
jungle some quarter of a mile away. Next day, however, she turned 
up again, trying to get into the run. She was caught a second time 
and taken further afield and liberated. After this, as she did not 
return, it was thought she had gone for good. However, some days 
later she was back again. She was now quite cured of the chicken- 
pox, having evidently cured herself in the jungle, either by eating 
some herb or. by living in surroundings natural to her. After this 
she continued to live in the garden outside the run, and used to walk 
about with some of the young hybrids which Mr. Johnson had bred, 
roosting at nights in the branches of a tree along with the hybrids. 
The fact of consorting with the wild hen rendered these hybrids a 
little less tame than usual. This hen eventually made a nest in the 
garden and laid three eggs and sat on them. As she was running 
with immature hybrid cockerels and had always rejected their 
advances, these eggs were not expected to be fertile. They were, 
however, removed from the nest and set under a domestic hen, and, 
as expected, all proved infertile. There is little doubt that, if 
Mr. Johnson had not left for England at this period, this jungle hen 
